When I met with Bill Gates a few months back, I thought that he was just kidding around. I remember the day well. I visited Bill at his home after he called me over to race one of those 34 sports cars he has in his garage. His house is as amazing as you may have heard about, when you walk in, the music is customized to your tastes... Weird Al was playing (White and Nerdy) in the background, Videos of all the Atari 2600 games playing were shown on the walls. Even my favorite artwork was hanging (Dogs playing Poker). It was really a site to see.

We kicked back, drank a few beers, played some video games and were just chatting about the world in general. Then, of course, the conversation drifted to Microsoft and the things I was working on. He said, for all of your contributions to the development community I thought that I should honor you in some way that is way above the normal "MVP" or even "ACE Award" status. Below is a snippet of the conversation as I remember it:

Me: "Are you going to offer me a that new "Chief Development Community Officer" position at Microsoft that I keep asking you about?" I even tried something worthy of such a role, I gave my rendition of "Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers." Bill: "Chief Development Community Officer"? ROFLOL(he actually pronounced ROFLOL, which made it funnier)

Me: Are you going to remove support for C# and force everybody to code in VB.NET? Bill: Yes, but that is another conversation. Besides, you did win the race.

Me: Okay, I give up. Bill: Good, you would never guess it anyway.

Bill: Name your favorite new technology? Any technology you like! (Now he had me really curious) Me: Well, that is an easy one....WPF/E

Bill: Well, here it is.... We are going to name it after you!!! Me: Microsoft David?!?!?

Bill: Even better, we are going to name it "Microsoft Silverlight"!!! Besides, remember what happened with Microsoft Bob. Me: Wow (getting emotional). I don't know what to say. When are you going to announce it?

Bill: May of this year. Me: May!!!!! Can't you do it any earlier? April, Maybe?

Bill: I will speak with the WPFE Team...or should I say the Silverlight Team and get them to move it up. Me: Thanks, Bill

So that is the story of how Microsoft Silverlight came to be. I would like to thank everybody at the Academy, My Mom, Dad, all of the folks at Microsoft, and last but not least, Bill.

StupidCubicle.com - My brand new Geek Gadget site. You can find the coolest and most unusual gadgets here.

XMLPitstop.com - My XMLPortal portal that proudly proclaims the largest collection of XML examples found on the web.

NonProfitWays.com - A volunteer .NET Development community that builds asp.net websites for Not for profit organizations.

Weekly Geek Humor Blog - My Geek Humor blog shows some of the funnier Geek Humor bits you can find out on the web. It is a lot of fun for me to put together.

Last but not least.....

Shameless Plug Time...

When I am not busy with all of my websites, I am an actual consultant that focuses on building applications for big and small companies alike. Check out my Portfolio (it even talks). If you need help with a project, just drop me an email at admin@community-credit.com If I can't help, I often know somebody that can.